I watched Luck last night, and it IS good! Best first episode since Lost. The whole atmosphere is different from what you usually get in stories about racing. It seems so very knowing. Only one potenial weak spot that I could see. Richard Kind's performance as the agent verged upon shtick, in contrast to the 100% believable performances of all the other actors in the show. But this is one series I'm definitely going to watch.

Lorna, did you ever watch Quantum Leap? The final episode shows Sam Beckett going into a bar where, like Gibbs, he sits at the bar/counter and watches bits and pieces of his life with some mystical alternatives thrown in. Both shows came from Donald Bellisario's production company. Recycling.

Remember Chip, Abby's unwanted assistant? That's Bellisario's son. And McGee's sister -- Bellisario's daughter. McGee himself is Bellisario's stepson. Another stepson and daughter are NCIS producers, and another son is a producer for NCIS: Los Angeles. Big Daddy takes care of everybody.

The son who played Chip also had a recurring role in JAG, another Bellisario series. He was Lt. Roberts' brother...Mike, I think. I remember the NCIS episode with McGee's sister, but I don't remember HER.

Upstairs on January 8th I mentioned the new Danish drama, Borgen (Government), seen over here on BBC4. It started with manoeuverings among political parties when the right-wing Prime Minister's name has been blackened just before a General Election. At the end of the second episode, after the election, the leader of the Moderate Party had just about formed a coalition government. The rest of the ten-part series is about her (yes, HER) tribulations - possible break-up of the coalition, difficulties over defence policy, arrival in Copenhagen of Eastern European dissident at the same time as the president of his country who wants him arrested, problems with her family. Plus there's a continuing thread involving the major TV station whose star interviewer has a sort of off/on relationship with the PM's spin-doctor.

Great stuff, and Series Two will air over here at the end of the year, with an apparently final series 3 about to start filming.

Danish seems more difficult to me than Swedish (as in the Wallander series), but Borgen has a certain amount of un-subtitled English language sections (e.g. when the TV interviewer talks to the E Europe dissident). And some English words seem to have permeated Denmark - guess what the Danish for "spin-doctor" is?

I'm sure that any of you who're interested can get hold of the DVD boxed set through the magic of the internet - well worth watching, IMNSHO.